Upcoming production TAPE discussed in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Theater troupe looks to bring 'shared discomfort' to Pitt performance

Outside the Wire is all about challenging the audience.

“It’s about shared discomfort … if you want to leave the room when you hear an actor talk about suffering, let’s talk about how hard it is to stay in the room in the presence of real suffering,” said Bryan Doerries, who co-founded the social impact group.

Outside the Wire will stage a table reading of excerpts from the play “Tape” on Wednesday evening at the University of Pittsburgh’s Charity Randall Theater. It’s a free event at 7 o’clock.

This is the first time Stephen Belber’s piece about three friends recalling what might have been a sexual assault a decade earlier will be performed in a campus setting.

Following the performance, there will be a brief presentation from diverse groups in education and health fields, including Pittsburgh Action Against Rape and a university Title IX representative. Then the the floor is open to audience members as a town hall facilitated by Mr. Doerries.

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The project has been in the media spotlight of late. A Sept. 12 feature in The New Yorker magazine was followed by an interview with NPR’s “All Things Considered.”

Mr. Doerries said the prospect of finding joy and relief through readings of tragedy sounds counterintuative, yet “it’s not designed to send us home to wallow in our own lack of agency; it’s to wake us up and also bring us together.”